Alex Taussig

Alex has spent uver a decade in venture capital, joining Lightspeed as a Partner in early 2016. He is passionate about understanding consumer behavior through data and has spent his career investing in startups addressing consumers? needs. Alex?s investments have covered consumer categories as diverse as retail, apparel, media, publishing, real estate, and education. Alex is a trained research scientist and breaks down business problems with deductive logic and analytical rigor. He originally studied physics at Harvard College, where he graduated summa cum laude, and then went on to receive a Master?s degree in materials engineering from MIT, where he was part of a research group building the first fully optical computer chip. Alex also received an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar, an honor given to the top 5% of the graduating class. Prior to joining Lightspeed, Alex was a Partner at Highland Capital Partners. Over his 7 years at the firm, Alex worked closely with over a dozen companies, including thredUP, 2U (TWOU), Carbon Black (CBLK), Imprivata (IMPR), RentJuice (acq. by Zillow), Streambase (acq. by TIBCO), and Vertica (acq. by HP). At Lightspeed, Alex is a partner on the consumer investment team, where he has led Lightspeed?s early investments in AWA Studios, Daily Harvest, Faire, Forage, Jumprope, Outschool, Zola, and several unannounced digital media startups. Alex publishes a popular weekly newsletter called DRINKING FROM THE FIREHOSE,which covers recent news across commerce, media, tech, science, and popular culture. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children.